Cambodia's recent history haunts most writing about Phnom Penh, and the canon is unusually rich.
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First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung. A child's memoir of the Khmer Rouge years — Loung was five years old when Phnom Penh fell in April 1975. Quiet, devastating, indispensable.
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The Gate by François Bizot. The French ethnologist's account of being captured by the Khmer Rouge in 1971, interrogated at length by the future commandant of S-21, and released. The chapters set in Phnom Penh during the fall of the city are extraordinary.
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A History of Cambodia by David Chandler. The standard one-volume history, written by the dean of Cambodian historians. Even-handed, readable, and the best context you can buy in a paperback.
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In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner. A novel based on the author's childhood in royalist Phnom Penh and her family's experiences after April 1975. Lyrical where Loung Ung is austere.
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Cambodia's Curse by Joel Brinkley. A harsher, more politically engaged account of post-war Cambodia — useful as a counterweight to the more sentimental reconstruction-era reporting.